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Graduate and Undergraduate Courses: Winter 2015

Anthropology Course Descriptions Winter 2015

20701-20702. Introduction to African Civilization I, II. (=AFAM 20701-20702, CHDV 21401 [20702], HIST 10101-10102, SOSC 22500-22600) Completion of the general education requirement in social sciences recommended. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This year the African Civilization Sequence focuses primarily on the colonial encounter, with some attention, in the second quarter, to everyday life in the contemporary period. The first quarter focuses on West, North, and Central Africa. The second quarter focuses on Eastern and Southern Africa, including Madagascar. We explore various aspects of how the colonial encounter transformed local societies, even as indigenous African social structures profoundly molded and shaped these diverse processes. Topics include the institution of colonial rule, independence movements, ethnicity and interethnic violence, ritual and the body, love, marriage, money, and popular culture. E. Osborn Winter. MonWed 1:30-2:50.

21265/36705. Celts: Ancient, Modern, Postmodern. Celts and things Celtic have long occupied a prominent and protean place in the popular imagination, and “the Celts” has been an amazingly versatile concept in the politics of identity and collective memory in recent history. This course is an anthropological exploration of this phenomenon that examines: (1) the use of the ancient past in the construction of modern nationalist mythologies of Celtic identity (e.g. in France and Ireland) and regional movements of resistance to nationalist and colonialist projects (e.g. in Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Gallicia, Asturias); (2) the construction of transnational ethno-nostalgic forms of Celtic identity in modern diasporic communities (Irish, Scottish, etc.); and (3) various recent spiritualist visions of Celticity that decouple the concept from ethnic understandings (e.g. in the New Age and Neo-Pagan movements). All of these are treated in the context of what is known archaeologically about the ancient peoples of Europe who serve as a symbolic reservoir for modern Celtic identities. The course explores these competing Celtic imaginaries in the spaces and media where they are constructed and performed, ranging from museums and monuments, to neo-druid organizations, Celtic cyberspace, Celtic festivals, Celtic theme parks, Celtic music, Celtic commodities, etc. Michael Dietler. TuTh 1:30-2:50

21303. Making the Natural World: Foundations of Human Ecology (=ENST 21301). Required of all ENST majors. In this course we consider the conceptual underpinnings of contemporary Western notions of ecology, environment, and balance, and also examine several specific historical trajectories of anthropogenic landscape change. We approach these issues from the vantage of several different disciplinary traditions including environmental history, philosophy, ecological anthropology, and paleoecology. M. Lycett. MonWed 1:30-2:50

21324. Globalizing India: Beyond ‘Tradition’ and ‘Modernity’ In urban India, malls and McDonalds stand side by side with centuries-old temples and illegal squatter settlements. In rural hinterlands, tribal communities use the internet to organize global protests against industrial schemes that will drown their villages, while farmers commit suicide after crops from seeds designed by multinational corporations fail to yield a profit. How can we grasp the complex processes of globalization in India without resorting to tired tropes of tradition and modernity? With the aid of popular fiction and film as well as scholarly articles and ethnographies, students in this course will consider globalization in India as a historical, economic, and sociocultural process that is transforming the way Indians experience and think about themselves, their cities, their nation, and everyday life. Meredith McGuire. 3:00-4:20 TuTh

21323. How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? – Race and Anthropology Race is a vexing subject for anthropologists (and everyone else!). It is a matter of commonsense and self-evident materialities while at the same time a misrecognized, effaced, and ephemeral object of analysis and experience. Through a series of ethnographic and theoretical readings we will explore the constitution of race as an object of analysis for anthropological inquiry. We will not start from the question of “what is race?” but rather we will be animated by the questions: how have anthropologists (and a selection of social scientist friends) tried to get a hold of race? Where have they found it and to what did they fix it? What problems does race provoke for theory and politics? Mullings (2005) has noted how anthropologists, despite possessing key theoretical and methodological tools, have lagged behind other social sciences in producing work on race. This course focuses primarily on works in the past few decades which have self-consciously attempted to push race to the forefront of anthropological discourse. The course readings open with an exploration of the concept and place of race in anthropological history while moving towards examinations of how race articulates to analytics such as gender, class, and colonialism. The texts lean towards explorations of blackness and race in the United States, but this foundation necessarily opens up to broader questions of racial formation. Christien Tompkins. 12:00-1:20 TuTh

21612/32205. Writing Central Asian Cultures (=NEHC 21612/32205). The aim of the course is to present students interested in Central Asia with a wide range of contemporary ethnography since the end of the Soviet Union, providing students with themes and approaches of western anthropologists and other social scientists working in the region for the past quarter century. The notion of “writing culture” refers both to the critique and style of ethnography associated with terms such as reflexivity and postmodernity that because popular and controversial in the US by the late 1980s. While the course certainly is not defined by any particular theoretical school, we may be confident that the critique of ethnography had lasting effects and influence the way many younger anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientist conducted research and wrote during the past three decades. Recently scholars have enriched ethnography accounts comparatively and theoretically drawing on international cases of postcolonialist development as well as economic anthropology, ethnicity and nationalism theory, and understanding spaces and borders from cultural geography. In reading contemporary account we will essay to evaluate the relevance and effectiveness of such approaches. Additionally, students will learn the strengths and weaknesses of particular methodological approaches and research techniques used by anthropologists in Central Asia, whether they pertain to studies of inter-ethnic conflict, labor migration, or marital and familial dynamics. Russell Zanca. 12:00-1:20 TuTh

21805/31825. Russia, Modernity and the Everyday (=RUSS 28803/3xxxx). The question of modernity has long been a central preoccupation in Russia. On the one hand, the early Soviet project was designed to conjure into being a new society marked by a distinctly socialist version of modernity. On the other hand, the collapse of the Soviet state in effect delegitimized a particular understanding of what it meant to be modern: Becoming post-Soviet meant not only the loss of a once promised radiant future, but often felt like a bewildering regression. This course explores what modernity has meant for ordinary people living in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, viewing the modern not as an objective break from “tradition,” but as a touchstone for orienting selves, practices, and understandings. We will focus particularly on everyday life, which served as a primary target of early Soviet change efforts, a wearying reminder of the distance between utopian promises and actually existing socialism, and, in the post-Soviet era, a battleground for establishing new teleologies and new futures amid what could now triumphantly be called truly “global” capitalism. More generally, readings in social history and the anthropology of postsocialism will provide groundwork for understanding the dramatic social transformations that have occurred in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia and the complex ways in which people have attempted to orient themselves and their everyday practices in shifting trajectories, temporalities, and directionalities. While Russia will be our focus, we will also draw several cases from elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc with the dual aims of learning from other socialist and postsocialist experiences and exploring the considerable impact of Soviet and Russian modernizing projects on the surrounding region in the socialist period and beyond. Susanne Cohen. 12:00-1:20 TuTh

23101-23102-23103. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I, II, III. (=HIST 16101-16102-16103, LTAM 16100-16200-16300, LCAS 34600-34700-34800, SOSC 26100-26200-26300) PQ: May be taken in sequence or individually. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This course introduces the history and cultures of Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Central America, South America, Caribbean Islands). Autumn Quarter examines the origins of civilizations in Latin America with a focus on the political, social, and cultural features of the major pre-Columbian civilizations of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec. The quarter concludes with consideration of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest and the construction of colonial societies in Latin America. Spring 2014 Quarter addresses the evolution of colonial societies, the wars of independence, and the emergence of Latin American nation-states in the changing international context of the nineteenth century. Winter 2014 Quarter focuses on the twentieth century, with special emphasis on the challenges of economic, political, and social development in the region. Winter: Mauricio Tenorio. MWF 1:30-2:20.

ANTH 23910/35035. The Holocaust Object (=POLI 29500/39500, JWSC 29500) In this course we explore various ontological and representational modes of the Holocaust material object world as it was represented during WWII. Then, we interrogate the post-Holocaust artifacts and material remnants, as they are displayed, curated, controlled, and narrated in the memorial sites and museums of former ghettos, extermination and concentration camps. These sites which – once the locations of genocide – are now places of remembrance, the (post)human, and material remnants, also serve educational purposes. Therefore, we study the ways in which this material world, ranging from infrastructure to detritus, has been subjected to two, often conflicting, tasks of representation and preservation, which we view through a prism of authenticity. In order to study representation, we critically engage a textual and visual reading of museum narrations and fiction writings; to tackle with demands of preservation we apply a neo-materialist approach. Of special interest are survivors’ testimonies as appended to the artifacts they donated. The course will also equip you with salient critical tools for future creative research in the Holocaust studies. Bozena Shallcross. TuesThurs 1:30-2:50

24001-24002-24003. Colonizations I, II, III (=SOSC 24002-24002-24003, CRPC 24001-24002-24003; HIST 18301-18302-18303)Must be taken in sequence. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This three-quarter sequence approaches the concept of civilization from an emphasis on cross-cultural/societal connection and exchange. We explore the dynamics of conquest, slavery, colonialism, and their reciprocal relationships with concepts such as resistance, freedom, and independence, with an eye toward understanding their interlocking role in the making of the modern world. Themes of slavery, colonization, and the making of the Atlantic world are covered in the first quarter. Modern European and Japanese colonialism in Asia and the Pacific is the theme of the second quarter. The third quarter considers the processes and consequences of decolonization both in the newly independent nations and the former colonial powers. Colonizations-1, Julie Saville, MW 1:30-2:50, Colonizations 2. K. Morrison MW 1:30-2:50

24101-24102. Introduction to the Civilization of South Asia, I, II (= SALC 20100-20200, HIST 10800-10900, SASC 2000-20100, SOSC 23000-23100). Must be taken in sequence. This course meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence introduces core themes in the formation of culture and society in South Asia before colonialism. The Winter Quarter focuses on Islam in South Asia, Hindu-Muslim interaction, Mughal political and literary traditions, and South Asia’s early encounters with Europe. The Spring Quarter analyzes the colonial period (i.e., reform movements, the rise of nationalism, communalism, caste, and other identity movements) up to the independence and partition of India. Muzaffer Alam. MW 1:30-2:50.

24315/35115. Culture, Mental Health, Psychiatry (=CHDV 23301/33301, HIPS 27302). This course examines mental health and illness as a set of subjective experiences, social processes and objects of knowledge and intervention. On a conceptual level, the course will invite students to think through the complex relationships between categories of knowledge and clinical technologies (in this case, mainly psychiatric ones) and the subjectivities of persons living with mental illness. Put in slightly different terms, we will look at the multiple links between psychiatrists’ professional accounts of mental illness and patients' experiences of it. Readings are drawn primarily from medical and psychological anthropology, cultural psychiatry, and science studies. They have been chosen to reflect a range of perspectives and disciplinary frameworks, both in the social science and in psychiatry itself. Students will be expected to pay close attention to the relationships between various texts, as well as their underlying assumptions, the evidence they employ, the historical and social context of their production and the positionality of their authors. Eugene Raikhel. TuTh 10:30-11:50.

24510/34501. The Anthropology of Museums (=SOSC 34500,, MAPS 34500, CHDV 34501). Using anthropological theories and methodology as a conceptual framework, this seminar will explore the organizational and ideological aspects of museum culture(s). The course includes visits to museums with guest museum professionals as guides into the culture of museums. The seminar continues in the Spring quarter, when students will conduct ethnographic fieldwork in a Chicago-area museum. (NOTE: Winter quarter is a prerequisite for participation in Spring Quarter.) M. Fred. Wed 3:00-5:50 pm.

25103/35103. The Body in Medicine and the Performing Arts (=ArtV 24113/34113). The Body in Medicine and the Performing Arts is a multidisciplinary course designed to explore the human body through the unique combination of medical science and the performing arts. Drawing broadly from medicine, anthropology, and the performing arts, this course seeks to understand the human body by comparing and contrasting the medicalized body with the animated or performing body. With an emphasis on experiential learning, the primary pedagogy will be interactive activities that allow students to learn about the human body through interactions with other bodies as well as their own. The medical sequence of the course will examine how medicine uses the body as an educational tool, views the body through radiographic imaging, utilizes the dead body to make diagnoses, and endeavors to prolong life. Activities associated with this sequence will include exploration of the dissected cadaver in the anatomy lab, viewing of radiographic images, use of the ultrasound on oneself, a visit to the morgue, and interactions with individuals who received organ transplants. The performing arts sequence will explore the mind and body as a continuous system through somatic pedagogies at the intersection of theater, dance, physical and psychotherapy. Students will use their own bodies as instruments of inquiry into somatic pedagogies such as Feldenkreis technique in physical and occupational therapies, methodologies drawn from Biomechanics in the theater, from Contact Improvisation in dance, and Bioenergetics in psychotherapy. These two distinct sequences will be explored within the larger cultural context of the human body and more specifically through the deliberate tension created by interactions with the dead/inanimate body and the living/animated body. Taken as a whole, The Body in Medicine and the Performing Arts will provide students with the unique opportunity to explore the human body through an engaging multi-disciplinary experience. Brian Callender, Catherine Sullivan.Thurs 1:30-4:20

25117. About Nature: From Science to Sense (=INST 27702). “Consider mushrooms,” Anna Tsing (2012) suggests to those who are curious about human nature and she points to the relational and biological diversity found at the unruly edges of the global empire—the governmentalized, politicized, commoditized culturenature of capitalism. This class follows the suit, tracking the scent of what evidently remains, thrives, withdraws, overwhelms, and inspires wonder in the guises of the natural, wild, organic, or awesome. About Nature starts with critiques of the essentialized Nature in the modernist, theological, and scientific discourses but it directs attention elsewhere: to the zones of writing and practice, academic and activist, professional and popular, where the natural figures through theoretical insights, empirical observations, or in practical problems; where it materializes in sensuous encounters, knowledgeable collecting, or ecstatic experiences; and where it rallies communities of inquiry and interest. We will be interested in popular commitments to natural living and eating, from North American wild fermentation movement to Russian dacha summer gardens and will read about some local traditions and revivals of medicinal, artisanal, and homemade foods. We will ask how are the process of foraging, preparing, consuming, and sharing playing up and reworking locally contingent intimacies between vegetal, animal, and otherwise non-human worlds. The class readings jump scales from “hyperobjects” (Morton 2013) to microbes (Paxson 2013, Money 2011). The reading list mixes ethnographies with literary, philosophical, and “mystical” texts and pairs anthropological discussions with practical manuals (on bee-keeping, mushroom collecting, and live-culture foods) and popular science books (on mushrooms, insects, and herbs). Our aim in reading so widely is to grasp the capacity with which the natural assembles and animates varied phenomena, collective feelings, and usable facts as well as to catalogue the excesses and mysteries where the luxuriant, charming, formidable value of the natural lingers, lurks, or “huddles defensively” (Tsing 2012; Shiva 1993, 1997). Moreover, the class will look obliquely to the natural sciences—botany, environmental sciences, and entomology—presuming neither their thorough disenchantment nor a merely performative and populist value of scientific “wonder” and curiosity, but rather listening to how the empirical requirements and experiential contacts, proofs and feelings spell out the range of relations with the natural objects, forms, and worlds across genres.

Throughout, our class discussions and a few field visits will be most attentive to the fungal and feral, insective and instinctive, weedy and herbal, as we interrogate, with Anna Tsing and others, relations that compose the natural-cultural forms, lives, and collectives at the seams of global capital. Larisa Jasarevic. TuTh 3:00-4:20

25245. Human Rights in (Post) Conflict Settings (=HMRT 22004). This course is designed to introduce students to the specific human rights issues that come into play in the wake of authoritarian regimes, civil wars, and other violent conflicts. Over the course of the quarter, students will learn about the specific legal mechanisms governments, international agencies, and NGOs use to address the challenges of (post)conflict peacebuilding, debate the goals and best practices for addressing human rights after violent conflict, and evaluate the application of such policies from different perspectives, including those of the state, victims, ex-combatants, and the dead. Students will apply these lessons through policy and analytic papers and presentations for a case study of their choosing. Jonah Rubin, Erin McFee. TuTh 10:30-11:50

25908/35908. Balkan Folklore (=SOSL 26800/36800, NEHC 20568/30568, CMLT 23301/33301). This course is an overview of Balkan folklore from ethnographic, anthropological, historical/political, and performative perspectives. We become acquainted with folk tales, lyric and epic songs, music, and dance. The work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who developed their theory of oral composition through work among epic singers in the Balkans, help us understand folk tradition as a dynamic process. We also consider the function of different folklore genres in the imagining and maintenance of community and the socialization of the individual. We also experience this living tradition first hand through our visit to the classes and rehearsals of the Chicago-based ensemble “Balkanske igre.” Angelina Ilieva. TuTh 1:30-2:50

26010/36010. History of Archaeological Thought. Borrowing its title from Bruce Trigger’s still unparalleled historical analysis of the shifting fortunes of archaeological thought in the Modern Era, this course proposes a succinct voyage throughout the different theoretical trends which, from the Middle Ages to the turn of the Twenty-First century, have framed the understanding of the past among academicians in the West. Largely inspired by Trigger’s incisive epistemological approach to archaeological theory and practice, this seminar will expose students to formative texts in classic and contemporary archaeological literature, fostering their reading and interpretation from a historically informed, socially engaged, and politically aware perspective. Open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, this course invites people from inside and outside the archaeological discipline to discover, critique or reconsider the long and complex scholarly debates that have contributed to the establishment of archaeology as an anthropological discipline in its own right. Felipe Gaitan-Ammann. MonWed 10:30-11:50.

26505/46505. Non-Industrial Agriculture (=ENST 26505). Agriculture is, fundamentally, a human manipulation of the environment, a deliberately maintained successional state designed to serve human needs and desires. In this course, we use the history of non-industrial agriculture to think through some contemporary concerns about environmental change and the sources of our food – including topics such as genetically modified plants, fertilizers, sustainability, and invasive species. Beginning with the origins of agriculture in the early Holocene, we examine several forms of so-called “traditional” agriculture in the tropics and elsewhere, from swidden to intensive cropping. While the course is framed in terms of contemporary concerns, our focus is primarily historical and ethnographic, focusing on the experiences of agriculturalists over the last ten thousand years, including non-industrial farmers today. Students will be expected to produce and present a research paper. Kathleen Morrison. TuTh 9:00-10:20

26750. Archaeology and History of Ancient India (=SALC 25303). This course will introduce students to the rich history of ancient India, from the Indus Civilization in 3rd millennium BCE up to the rise of the Gupta Dynasty in 4th century CE. Throughout the course we will pay particular attention to the evidence that scholars use to (re)construct the ancient past (such as ancient texts, inscriptions, coins, and the archaeological record), and the ways in which they interpret this evidence. We will interrogate the definition and use of concepts such as ‘civilization’, ‘culture’, and, ‘empire’, and explore themes such as the development of complex societies, urbanization, political economy, patronage, and the role of religion in early state authority. As part of the final project, students will conduct library research on one of the topics we have covered in class, and write a final paper that examines the use of various sources. Julie Hanlon. MW 3:00-4:20

27400/37400. Language, Power, and Identity in Southeastern Europe: A Linguistics View of the Balkan Crisis (=SLAV 23000/33000, HUMA 27400, LING 27200/37200). Language is a key issue in the articulation of ethnicity and the struggle for power in Southeastern Europe. This course familiarizes students with the linguistic histories and structures that have served as bases for the formation of modern Balkan ethnic identities that are being manipulated to shape current and future events. The course is informed by the instructor's thirty years of linguistic research in the Balkans as well as his experience as an adviser for the United Nations Protection Forces in Former Yugoslavia and as a consultant to the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, and other organizations. Course content may vary in response to on-going current events. V. Friedman. MW 3:00-4:20.

27515/37515, Space and Language (=LING 24090/34090) Over the past few decades, cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation in the encoding of spatial notions has been the subject of intense debate, bringing together researchers working in lexical typology, psycholinguistics, and anthropological linguistics. What strategies do speakers of different languages use for describing spatial relations? Do the linguistic differences correspond to cognitive or cultural differences in perception and conceptualization of space? What does the use of spatial metaphor tell us about cognition? This course will survey several aspects of cross-linguistic diversity, such as differences in morphosyntactic and lexical means specialized for the encoding of spatial relations; the choice of a reference point for describing a spatial relation; differences in the use of spatial metaphor. Special attention will be paid to the different kinds of methods used to explore the linguistic encoding of spatial relations and their underlying representation, ranging from corpus methods to typological questionnaires, acquisition studies, and eye tracking experiments. In addition to reading and discussing major work, students will conduct their individual study exploring one aspect of the encoding of spatial concepts in their language of choice. Tatiana Nikitina. 9:30-12:20 Mon.

28100/38100. Evolution of the Hominoidea (=HIPS 24000, EVOL 38100). This course carries 200 units of credit. A detailed consideration of the fossil record and the phylogeny of Ho­minidae and collateral taxa of the Hominoidea is based upon studies of casts and comparative primate osteology. Russell Tuttle. MWF 9:30-11:20

28400/38800. Bioarchaeology and the Human Skeleton (=BIOS 23247). This course is designed to provide students in archaeology with a thorough understanding of bioarchaeological and osteological methods used in the interpretation of prehistoric societies. The integration of archaeology and human biology has been an especially dynamic part of anthropological endeavors during the past few decades, giving archaeologists important data on the genetic identity, health, and diet of ancient societies. When combined with contextual data on mortuary treatment and cemetery structure, bioarchaeology forms a critical part of the technical arsenal of modern archaeologists. The goal of this course will be to introduce students to bioarchaeological methods and theory. In particular, laboratory instruction will stress hands-on experience in analyzing the human skeleton. Seminar classes will emphasize bioanthropological theory and its application to specific cases throughout the world. There will be one laboratory class and one seminar-format class per week. M.C. Lozada. TuTh 1:30-3:20 BSLC 442.

29910. BA Essay Seminar.(Limited to students writing BA papers in Anthropology). We will address three key issues in this seminar. First, we will focus on formulating a viable and provocative research problem that can be addressed in a 40-50 page paper. Second, we will discuss some key research techniques necessary for this endeavor, paying particular attention to the relationship between questions and evidence. Finally, third, we will consider the writing process (including aspects such as outlining, planning, and drafting) and modes of argumentation. Gabriel Tusinski. Wed 1:30-4:20.

36200. Ceramic Analysis for Archaeologists. This course introduces students to the theoretical foundations and analytical techniques that allow archaeologists to use ceramics to make inferences about ancient societies. Ethnographic, experimental, and physical science approaches are explored to develop a realistic, integrated understanding of the nature of ceramics as a form of material culture and to assess both the kinds of interpretations of ancient people that can plausibly be made on the basis of their pottery and which techniques and research strategies may best serve to obtain useful information. Practical training in the use of the Ceramic Laboratories is included. Michael Dietler. TuTh 10:30-11:50.

37202. Language in Culture II (LING 3120, Psych 47002). Must be taken in sequence. This is the second part of a two-quarter sequence on the relations between language and culture. Building on the first quarter's discussions of the interactional order, this quarter's class explores the semiotics of sociocultural differentiation in institutions such as schools, nations, colonial projects and liberal polities, and the simultaneous construction of those very institutions through modes of linguistic interaction. The more general aim is to investigate the constitutive role of language and semiotic figuration in sociopolitical processes.

We start with the notion of “ideology” and specifically language ideology, within the scholarly tradition of ideological critique. Language ideologies shape understandings of language and interaction by users -- both professional and non-expert -- and shape assumptions about the supposedly "natural" indexicality of linguistic forms. Language ideologies are both embedded in practices and reflexive of them; they are pervaded by the moral and political positions within a social field. To study language ideologies is to explore the nexus of language, culture and politics. We thus examine the representations – implicit and explicit – that create language’s role in a social and cultural world, and that are themselves acts within it.

The metapragmatic/ ideological regimentation of language in use gives rise to forms of shifting "subjectivity" or inhabitable identities. These processes can be investigated through studies of indexical markers in interaction: deference-and-demeanor indexicals, honorific registers, gender indexes, stylistic indexes of situation and identity. These have been the major subject matter of variationist sociolinguistics, which we will read with a critical eye, taking linguistic units such as "language" "dialect" “code” and "variety” as normative cultural constructs -- folk concepts as well as scientific ones. Special attention is devoted to problematizing units of analysis such as “community,” and network, and to "standardization" as a hegemonic process deeply implicated in nation-building, state-making, colonialism, and other aspects of "modernity" as a discursive project.

The course takes up processes of differentiation and boundary-making: register-formation, multilingualism, codeswitching. These rely on the regimentation of linguistic and social forms, i.e. metadiscursive processes that authorize (prospectively) and justify (retrospectively) actions and identities. We end with a look at historical change in linguistic norms – specifically: language loss – thereby integrating the synchronic and diachronic; bringing together language use, ideology and structure in real-time interactions and institutions. A final question asked in the course: What is the role of linguists’ ideologies in language loss? Susan Gal. TuTh 10:30-12:20

45600. When Cultures Collide (=CHDV 45600, HMRT 35600, PSYC 45300, GNSE 45600). Coming to terms with diversity in an increasingly multicultural world has become one of the most pressing public policy projects for liberal democracies in the early 21st century. One way to come to terms with diversity is to try to understand the scope and limits of toleration for variety at different national sites where immigration from foreign lands has complicated the cultural landscape. This seminar examines a series of legal and moral questions about the proper response to norm conflict between mainstream populations and cultural minority groups (including old and new immigrants), with special reference to court cases that have arisen in the recent history of the United States. Richard Shweder. Wed 9:30-11:50

46410. Archaeology of Regional Interaction: Theories and Case Studies (=EALC 46040). This course aims to review theories and case studies of regional and inter-regional interaction in the anthropological archaeology literature. The course will examine chronologically important theories and topics in the field, such as interaction sphere, peer polity, circumscription theory, world systems theory, center and peripheries, prestige goods exchange, warfare, colonial encounter, network society, etc. Areas of cases studies discussed in the course include Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, American Southwest, Central Asia, China, and Southeast Asia. The goal of the course is to establish understanding of the existing theoretical discourse and to provide perspectives from wide geographic scope. Young-ti LI. Tues 1:30-4:20.

47305. Evolution of Language (=LING 21920/41920, CHSS 41920, CHDV 41920, EVLO 41920, PSYC 41920). How did language emerge in the phylogeny of mankind? Was its evolution saltatory or gradual? Did it start late or early and then proceed in a protracted way? Was the emergence monogenetic or polygenetic? What were the ecological prerequisites for the evolution, with the direct ecology situated in the hominine species itself, and when did the prerequisites obtain? Did there ever emerge a language organ or is this a post-facto construct that can be interpreted as a consequence of the emergence of language itself? What function did language evolve to serve, to enhance thought processes or to facilitate rich communication? Are there modern “fossils” in the animal kingdom that can inform our scholarship on the subject matter? What does paleontology suggest? We will review some of the recent and older literature on these questions and more. Salikoko Mufwene. TuTh 1:30-2:50.

53520 Ethnographic Writing (=CHDV 42214) This course is intended for qualitative, anthropologically oriented graduate students engaged in the act of ethnographic writing, be it a thesis, a prospectus or an article. The course is organized around student presentations of work in progress and critical feedback from course participants. It is hoped that each participant will emerge from the course with a polished piece of work. Only graduate students will be admitted and consent of the instructor is mandatory. Jennifer Cole. Tues 1:30-4:30

55976. AdvRdgs: TechnoScience. (PQ at least one course in Science Studies or consent of the instructor.) Joseph Masco. Tues. 2:30-5:20.

57718. The Politics of Translation: Circulations and Commensurations Across Social Domains (=LING 57718). Ethnography has long been considered the “translation” of cultures, but the process of translation has not often been closely examined in anthropology. Since the middle of the 20th century it has been problematized by philosophy of science, in which incommensurability between “paradigms” was thought to block translation across them, undermining the possibility of progress. Similarly, the politics of multiculturalism in many parts of the globe has revived Herderian notions of cultures as “monads” between which there is only miscommunication, apparently undermining the founding assumptions of liberalism. Cultural, ethical, epistemic and linguistic “relativity” were the labels for discussing such matters in earlier decades. Today, these concepts are increasingly problematic as anthropology engages with the ubiquitous facts of circulation: in addition to objects, materials and commodities, financial instruments, discourses, media, methods, theories, political movements, institutional arrangements all seem to “travel” across space-time, seeming to contradict assumptions of cultural incommensurability. This course asks: How (if at all) do cultural “objects” come to be measured by similar metrics (i.e. commensurated), and/or equated in meaning (i.e. translated) so that they are taken up, recognized, reanimated, imitated in diverse locations and thus seem to travel and circulate. We start with the hypothesis that there are semiotic processes and practices by which translation and commensuration are achieved, fought over, and/or rejected. What are they? Especially: How are the social worlds, “objects,” personae and sites of commensuration/translation themselves transformed by these processes. The strategy of the course is to start with practices of linguistic translation, as these are among the mediators of virtually all other commensuration processes. We explore how far linguistic and semiotic practices at language boundaries in specific sociohistorical and ideological circumstances can help illuminate other forms of commensuration and boundary work. What are the implications of these processes for the practice of anthropology? Susan Gal. Thurs 1:30-4:20.